Is Frank Gore a Top-10 All Time 49er?

Originally posted by LasVegasWally:
It depends on how you evaluate a "Top 10 Niner" of all time. Best at their position, game heroics, stats?

Without a lot of input I don't think I could answer that.

Off the top of my head and in no particular order - good for a starting point.

1 Rice
2 Montana
3 Young
4 Lott
5 BY
6 RC Owens
7 Wilcox
8 ?
9?
10?

I don't put Dion Sanders - only one season.
Dwight Clark was good BUT outside of the "Catch" I don't see enough to get him in he top 10
Fred Dean - Did he play long enough for us?
JT - would have been a STAR on every team in the league BUT what are the criteria to make it to Top 10?
Barton - one of our best OLine ever.

Fred Dean was a key part of our success in multiple Super Bowl seasons. I would say he's an all timer

Originally posted by DirtyP:

Originally posted by LasVegasWally:
It depends on how you evaluate a "Top 10 Niner" of all time. Best at their position, game heroics, stats?

Without a lot of input I don't think I could answer that.

Off the top of my head and in no particular order - good for a starting point.

1 Rice
2 Montana
3 Young
4 Lott
5 BY
6 RC Owens
7 Wilcox
8 ?
9?
10?

I don't put Dion Sanders - only one season.
Dwight Clark was good BUT outside of the "Catch" I don't see enough to get him in he top 10
Fred Dean - Did he play long enough for us?
JT - would have been a STAR on every team in the league BUT what are the criteria to make it to Top 10?
Barton - one of our best OLine ever.

Fred Dean was a key part of our success in multiple Super Bowl seasons. I would say he's an all timer

Leaving Haley off because he became a Cowboy, or because he was an insane nudist locker room nightmare?

Originally posted by WRATHman44:
Leaving Haley off because he became a Cowboy, or because he was an insane nudist locker room nightmare?

that alone makes him an all time great

He carried this franchise onto his shoulders during its most darkest age, and puts everything he has into every snap. IMHO he's in there, and will retire (if not already) the greatest RB in franchise history.

Top 10 49er running back? Unquestionably. Top 10 all time 49er... there's a lot of competition there and he's never (yet) been a part of a championship team. So it's unfair, but hard for him to crack that group.

Frank Gore is an absolutely phenomenal football player who's had the misfortune of spending most of his career on poor teams. If he had played with Montana and Rice, he would've been one of the top 10 for sure. Unfortunately, he's had to spend his career carrying this team on his shoulders; just like he did last night.

Originally posted by Lifer:
Top 10 49er running back? Unquestionably. Top 10 all time 49er... there's a lot of competition there and he's never (yet) been a part of a championship team. So it's unfair, but hard for him to crack that group.

Frank Gore is an absolutely phenomenal football player who's had the misfortune of spending most of his career on poor teams. If he had played with Montana and Rice, he would've been one of the top 10 for sure. Unfortunately, he's had to spend his career carrying this team on his shoulders; just like he did last night.

Even more reason for him to be in the top ten.

I don't understand how some people could say no. He is the 49ers leading rusher. He has played on a crap team for years and still put up big numbers. He is not a very flashy player, just a great downhill runner. Easily top 10 IMO.

Originally posted by BloodWolf209:

I don't understand how some people could say no. He is the 49ers leading rusher. He has played on a crap team for years and still put up big numbers. He is not a very flashy player, just a great downhill runner. Easily top 10 IMO.

It is not a knock on Gore. It is simply recognition of the many great 49ers from the past.

Total 49er's Yards (NFL and pre-NFL)

Joe Perry: 8689 yds
Frank Gore: 8,226 yds

Frank is 463 yds short of having the full 49er's rushing title.

I would say that it's pretty doable this year.

The best RB would be one of the top 10 best Niners ever. He and Patrick Willis will end up in that list.

Originally posted by notsoempty86:

Originally posted by chrisernst82:

Originally posted by notsoempty86:

Originally posted by DirtyP:

Originally posted by notsoempty86:

I'm not comparing the two. Gore is a better running back even at this stage of his career.

I said, ON THAT PLAY, hunter would have scored. Watch the replay, the hole was huge. Hunter would have hit the hole, but had the legs to take it all the way (probably to the left corner of the end zone). Of course this is my opinion.

Don't misunderstand what I said in my first post. Frank's heart and vision are UNPARALLELED.

Kendal Hunter has never even had a touchdown run longer than 17 yards in his entire career

Whatever. Missing the point.

So the point is Kendall is faster than Gore. No doubt, but if speed was all it took Carl Lewis would be alot richer right now. To say another player would have done better on any play is irrelevant because you dont know for sure like you said his vision is top notch you cant say the same about Hunter yet. Gore is 29 years old and looking as good as ever he is putting up career numbers in YPC now that he has a line worthy of his skills.

I am not denying Gore has been amazing, and is still amazing. But I think it is OK to acknowledge that with the way our offense is struggling, we needed him to fishing that run, and he simply didnt have the legs/stamina to do it.

As of today, he is the 2 nd leading rusher in the league. That tells me he has more legs and stamina then 30 other starting RB.

Gore is top 5 niner all time. Defensive players IMO can never be in top five- they don't score points

Absolutely. Might even be Top 5. He needs to win a SB first though to get into the Top 5 conversation. If he does, the list would look like Montana, Young, Rice, Lott, Gore...

I wonder if Gore has this type of game if he ran 20 times vs the Giants. I honestly think SF saved him for the SEA game.

He has to be.

He's probably kept hundreds of people from jumping off the golden gate bridge in the days where we were unwatchable.

Originally posted by dtg_9er:
Frank is definitely top ten, I would put him higher, but he is not as fast as he use to be. His burst through the line is still impressive.

Quoting to correct the record...top ten running backs, but all time 9ers? Can't imagine trying to make an all time list including every position! Trying to place values on each position...can't do it!

Top 10 for sure. As much as people might say Alex will never fulfill his #1 overall drafting, one has to remember we drafted Gore in the 3rd round (65th overall) of that same draft - 2005. Was drafted behind other RBs, such as Ronnie Brown, Cedric Benson, Cadillac, JJ Arrington, and Eric Shelton (who?). I know there was questions about his knees, but looking back on it, we easily got a top 10 pick in Gore that year. (BTW, Carlos Rogers was drafted #9 overall that year)

And I know this guy isn't probably a top 10 Niner of all-time, Brent Jones is one of my favorite players of all-time. He always seemed to come up big.